Universities need numbers to add up after Brexit

Uniting nations: the creativity of a university is fuelled by a diversity of culture and talent. Credit: UCL

January 26, 2017

It really is all about the numbers, whether it be funding for ground breaking – often life saving – research, undergraduate or postgraduate students or engaging with emerging markets.

The scale of the figures involved means Brexit has the capacity to seriously damage the nation’s multi-billion pound higher education sector.

That is what the House of Commons Education Committee was told yesterday when it took evidence in a packed Haldane room at University College London (UCL).

President and Provost at UCL, Michael Arthur, outlined the difficulties his university faced. Students from 160 countries were enrolled. Thirty per cent of UCL students were from outside the European Union, and 12 per cent from within the EU.

The university had successfully branded itself as London’s global university, he said.

In the 2016-17 academic year 39,473 students enrolled at UCL – 4,926 were from the EU, predominantly from France, Italy, Germany, Greece and Spain. Those EU students now face an uncertain future, not knowing what visa changes lie ahead or if they will be eligible for the loans they need to complete their courses. Applications from EU students have already fallen by 7.43 per cent.

[EU students] were being used as pawns in a political game, where their right to continue to study appeared to be dependent on what Mrs May could get for UK nationals living in Europe

There are 12,300 staff at UCL, 7,900 of them are from the UK and 2,600 from the EU – mainly Italy, Germany and France. Of that 2,600 figure, 1,099 are researchers and 563 academics.

Those researchers and academics collaborate on projects and are heavily reliant on EU funding, especially from the European Research Council and Horizon 2020. Since 2007, UCL has been awarded 160 ERC grants. And, since 2014 when Horizon 2020 began, UCL has been awarded 46 grants.

Professor Arthur said that, since last June’s referendum, he had written to all relevant departments seeking clarification on future collaboration. “Basically I was told ‘don’t phone us, we’ll phone you’,” he told the committee.

The best researchers were those Europeans that came to the UK as post-doctoral students and then spent many years working on important scientific discoveries, he said. “They’re now very worried about the pernicious effect of Brexit … EU students are very talented. They come from a diversity of cultures. The creativity of a university is fuelled by that diversity of culture and talent.”

Professor Arthur’s concerns were supported by the six other witnesses from across the sector that gave evidence. Sally Hunt, general secretary of the University and College Union told the committee that Brexit and anti-immigration rhetoric were damaging UK higher education. She recognised that Prime Minister Theresa May’s recent announcement of an industry green paper that could lead to new funding for research and development offered some reassurance.

“But the reality is the future is still unclear,” Ms Hunt said. “I say that with some sorrow. In reality it’s an aspiration rather than a guarantee.”

Universities were still unclear about future funding – especially whether or not the government would replace any lost funds from the EU in the long term. Citizens from the EU had already begun to look elsewhere for long-term employment. And which staff and students would be allowed to stay in the UK – a complex policy question that should be properly debated – appeared to be driven by the Home Office, not higher education institutions, she said.

Soraya Vieru, a vice-president at the National Union of Students, told the committee there were 125,000 students from the EU paying to study at UK universities. Yet they were being used as pawns in a political game, where their right to continue to study appeared to be dependent on what Mrs May could get for UK nationals living in Europe.

Asked by committee members what she believed should be a priority for government in the lead up to Brexit, Ms Vieru said: “a workable immigration system”.

This is not the time to take a step backwards if we’re looking to build a fairer Britain

Jo Beall, director of education and society at the British Council, said she welcomed the government’s aspirations for “a global Britain”, but for that to become a reality Britain needed “global graduates” and a hard Brexit threatened both. “We need to take students out of net migration figures,” she said.

“It’s vital that we engage with emerging markets. For example we’re working with 80,000 students from China, 25,000 from India,” Dr Beall said. “… International higher education is becoming increasingly regionalised. This is not the time to take a step backwards. … We can’t say ‘we want to trade with you, but we don’t want to see your children in our universities’.”

Nicola Dandridge, chief executive at Universities UK, said the government had “an unparalleled opportunity to recalibrate” the immigration system.

She too urged that students be removed from the net migration figure, saying “we welcome genuine students [but] immigration policy must be based on robust data”. The International Passenger Survey was unreliable and governments needed to stop making changes to immigration rules so that the system could be relied upon by those hoping to study in the UK.

Gavan Conlon, partner and head of education and labour markets at London Economics, said the UK had become “slightly tainted” in the months following the referendum and it needed to act quickly to change that perception. Universities might benefit from the falling pound, which had dropped 10.6 per cent since the referendum, but the uncertainty that also followed changes everything.

Rosie Burchard, director of external relations at the Erasmus Student Network UK, said: “This is not the time to take a step backwards if we’re looking to build a fairer Britain”.

News Bites

May to hold talks with Merkel in Berlin
Theresa May is due to hold talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel as she seeks to make progress on negotiating Brexit. The PM will travel to Berlin for the meeting at the Chancellery. It comes a day ahead of a speech on Saturday in which she is expected to set out the “security partnership” she wants to maintain with the EU. The UK is under pressure to reveal more detail about the final relationship it wants with the EU. Mrs May and her ministers are setting out what has been dubbed “the road to Brexit” in a series of speeches. BBC news, February 16

UK aims to keep financial rules close to EU
The UK is ready to set out its vision for how it wants financial services to operate after Brexit and favours an ambitious “mutual recognition” of regulations to preserve the City of London’s access to the EU. Under Britain’s proposal, the UK and the EU would recognise each other’s regulatory and supervisory regimes and would have aligned rules at the point of Brexit, with a mechanism that would monitor any divergence. Three senior figures briefed on Brexit discussions in the cabinet said that the government will back the proposal, which is also favoured by Mark Carney, the Bank of England governor. Financial Times, February 16

Business leader warns May against harsh immigration policy
British companies are facing a recruitment crisis, with labour shortages hitting critical levels in some sectors, according to a business leader who has urged the government to produce details on a post-Brexit immigration system. Adam Marshall, the director general of the British Chambers of Commerce, said the lack of candidates for some jobs was biting hard, and he warned ministers against bringing forward a “draconian and damaging” visa or work permit system. Surveys by the BCC showed that nearly three-quarters of firms trying to recruit had been experiencing difficulties “at or near the highest levels since [BCC] records began over 25 years ago”, he said. The Guardian, February 16

Lecturers want ‘radical’ tuition fee review
University staff are calling for a “radical” overhaul of tuition fees and higher education funding in England in a review of student finance. Sally Hunt, leader of the University and College Union, says the review must be more than “tinkering at the edges”. The review, expected to be formally announced in the near future, follows a promise by the prime minister to examine the cost of university. Theresa May said the review would show “we have listened and we have learned”. Ms Hunt, whose members are threatening strike action next week in a pensions dispute, says there needs to be a “fundamental look at university funding”. BBC news, February 16

Shampoo ‘as bad a health risk as car fumes’
Shampoo, oven cleaner, deodorant and other household products are as significant a source of the most dangerous form of air pollution as cars, research has found. Scientists studying air pollution in Los Angeles found that up to half of particles known as volatile organic compounds (VOCs) came from domestic products, which also include paint, pesticides, bleach and perfumes. These compounds degrade into particles known as PM2.5, which cause respiratory problems and are implicated in 29,000 premature deaths each year in the UK. Traffic had been assumed to be the biggest source of air pollution. The new findings, published in the journal Science, led to warnings that countries may struggle to hit pollution targets, with most tackling vehicle emissions. The Times, February 16

US rejects China bid for Chicago Stock Exchange
The US has rejected a proposed merger between the Chicago Stock Exchange and a Chinese-linked investor group. The decision comes after more than two years of reviews by officials. The tie-up was initially approved by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, pending further approval by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). But US politicians, including President Trump, have said letting a Chinese firm invest in a US exchange was a bad idea. Under the proposal, the Chinese-led North America Casin Holdings group would have bought a minority share of the privately owned Chicago Stock Exchange. BBC news, February 16

Labour gets 16,000 emails in five days urging it to consult on Brexit
More than 16,000 people have emailed Labour over the past five days, urging the party to consult members on Brexit after MPs said the topic was being ignored by its most senior policy body. The emails from party members will be examined by the party’s national policy forum (NPF), which meets this weekend in Leeds, and whose members include the shadow cabinet and trade union leaders. Labour has set up eight policy commissions since last year’s general election, to consult members and develop policy, but none focus on Brexit. The party has said Brexit is covered under the international policy commission, involving Keir Starmer, the shadow Brexit secretary, but that commission is not at the moment accepting submissions on Brexit. The Guardian, February 15